I'm here to tell you that it's both easier and more difficult for me to write when everything seems to be falling apart, and that, paradoxically, it's more difficult and not easy at all to write when the veil of darkness has lifted and everything seems to have risen to the level of unicorns and rainbows set against neon animal print, like a Lisa Frank composition notebook, but a little (or a lot) more subdued.
Insert something here about how they say the best art is made from suffering and something else about how I'm finally out of my three-month-long bad mood, so by that logic, objects in mirror may appear to have deteriorated. It's all a science experiment, anyway, this life, but we're all just auditing, so there's no pass or fail here. Actually, I don't know if that's how auditing a class works, but my window for receiving corrective feedback is closed for the day, so I'll happily surrender this unknown to the great mother.
As always, thank you for reading! <3
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In the midst of perhaps my darkest winter yet, I ran into an old acquaintance who, when exchanging her side of pleasantries, said she was doing "fantastic!"
"How annoying," I thought, as I rolled my third eye to the back of my skull.
What could possibly be fantastic? I could think of not one thing.
"And... what an asshole," I may or may not have muttered under the breath of my breath. I had just enough restraint to not outwardly balk at her googly-eyed appreciation for life.
Fast forward to the re-emergence of the eternal spring that lives within my everlasting and insufferable winter or whatever the line is, and I've crawled out from my gremlin shack situated a little bit above rock bottom, back into the sunlight and into my Self, feeling something akin to... fantastic.
Now, I'm the asshole.
How did I accomplish such a feat in what seemed (to me and probably everyone I complained to during this time--thank you and I love you, by the way) like infinite minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, lifetimes?
If time is magic, then magic. And bees.
Around that time, I kept seeing bees. I'd return to my car and find one humping my windshield, staying on for as long as it could withstand the increasing velocity of the wind. Or until I turned on my windshield wipers (just kidding).
It happened too many times to simply be coincidence. I'd be on the freeway going a normal pace (3-10 mph during most hours in LA), and a bee would travel in front of and alongside my car. Sure, I'd roll up my window in a bit of a panic because I fear getting stung like the earth goddess I am not, but otherwise, I appreciated the company and what was obviously becoming a message from my angel guides.
I picked bees for my second grade project. I think the poster board is still in the garage, an unsightly orange and an imposing size for a seven-year-old to haul into the classroom, with "BEES" in huge raised capital letters across the top, a giant and precisely hand-drawn honeycomb, stickers of bees and factoids sprinkled here and there, with my name, grade, classroom number, and teacher's name at the bottom left, in case anyone wanted to steal my (mom's) exceptional work and pass it off as their own.
I'm really reaching here -- aren't we all? -- but I don't find it coincidental that bees tamaso maa jyotir-gamaya-ed* me from this recent bout of blah as they seem in hindsight to have marked the retiring of my second-grade self from a two-year-long bad mood (lol but also not lol).
Bees are supposedly a good omen. They signal us to new life and also back to one's soul, that is, if you happen to have lost your way. I like to think that they showed me that I was on my way back to the place within me where I'm not questioning any of my life choices, where I, in fact, feel good about all of them. Maybe not fantastic, but good. Which is, in itself, kinda fantastic.
Earlier today, a client said something that made me think about how being "in trouble" can mean two things. It can mean that one is in a state of distress, or that one is being or feeling admonished. Maybe it doesn't matter, because whichever one you happen to be in, in that moment, it feels like you're fooked. But if you're lucky or do the work or maybe also rest, or a mix of all of that and magic, you can be in it, not of it, and ride the wave to the other side.
Until next time-
<3 SBU
*Lead us from darkness to light.
From the beautiful shanti mantra which, in its entirety, goes:
Om Asato Maa Sad-Gamaya Tamaso Maa Jyotir-Gamaya Mrtyor-Maa Amrtam Gamaya Om Shaantih Shaantih Shaantih
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Lead us from the unreal to the real Lead us from darkness to light Lead us from death to immortality
AUM peace, peace, peace!
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